


Let Me Wake With You By My Side

by Nevanna



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Cuddling & Snuggling, Dysfunctional Relationships, M/M, Missing Scene, Past Relationship(s), Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2021-02-18 07:23:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21540568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nevanna/pseuds/Nevanna
Summary: Five times that Martin woke up without Jon, and one time that they woke up together.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims, Martin Blackwood/Peter Lukas
Comments: 12
Kudos: 149
Collections: Hurt/Comfort Bingo - Round 10





	Let Me Wake With You By My Side

**Author's Note:**

> This fic fills the "cuddling" square for H/C Bingo. Although the segments take place at various points in time, it requires canon knowledge through the end of Season 4.
> 
> The title is (once again) taken from the song "Always" by the October Project.

The sky is still mostly dark when Martin opens his eyes, but it’s close enough to dawn that he might not fall asleep again, and isn’t sure whether he should try. One way or another, a shower - almost certainly under cold water - is definitely in order before he starts his day.

This isn’t the first time that he’s woken up alone and aroused after dreaming about Jonathan Sims’ hands and lips and various other parts, but it’s the first time since Jon became his boss. Martin could try to revisit the dream when he gets himself off, or he could attempt to banish it entirely, and he doesn’t know which choice would amount to punishing himself more.

At work, Jon doesn’t spare him more than a glance and a few terse instructions, and for once, Martin is almost relieved.

-

Martin didn’t expect that he’d be able to sleep, while the creatures squirmed outside his door, but he manages to drift off for a couple of hours, fully clothed and hunched on the sofa. His dreams are a confusing blur of people that he recognizes and not-people that he hopes he’ll never have to see. At some point, hovering on the edge of consciousness, he swears that he hears Jon calling for him - _Martin, explain yourself right now_ – and, as soon as he’s fully awake, almost laughs at himself for being so pathetic even in his wishful thinking.

On the other hand, if Martin escapes alive, Jon can scold as much as he likes.

Martin tries not to think too hard about the implications of that “if,” but even if the worms can’t crawl through under the door or through the pipes, it’s much harder, when he’s alone, to stop certain thoughts from wriggling into his head.

-

By the time he returns to the Institute after the worm-creature’s final attack, Martin’s flat has started to feel a little bit less like a tomb. He slept with the windows open whenever he could, breathing in the night air even as it started to grow colder. He’ll never admit how much he missed the muted sound of Jon reading statements in the next room, or the way his voice and eyes softened when he was sleepy.

All the same, when Martin returns to the space in the Archives where he slept for all those months, he’s glad that he doesn’t have to hide there anymore.

“What are you doing?” Jon asks sharply.

“Oh!” He’s somehow managed to catch Martin in the most undignified position imaginable: on his hands and knees, arse in the air, rooting about under the bed. “I was just looking for some things I left behind.” He scrambles to his feet. “Notebooks, and the like. Didn’t have a chance to do much clearing-out, you understand…”

He’s almost grateful when Jon interrupts him: “At the moment, I understand far less than I thought I did.” Martin can guess that Jon is probably talking about the discovery of his predecessor’s murder. “But since you mention it, I do have some of your belongings. Would you like them back?”

“That’d be good, yeah.” He resists the urge to ask if Jon looked through them, because wouldn’t that imply that there was something to find? “Thanks.”

“Of course.”

“So, assuming you’re ready to ‘pursue knowledge with renewed dedication to the mission of the Magnus Institute…’” Martin couldn't resist quoting the welcome-back email that Elias had sent to all the staff. “Just tell me what you need.”

“More than ready,” Jon replies. “And I shall do my best to let you know.”

-

Jon texted Martin, the night before, to tell him that everyone had arrived safely in Yarmouth. Martin had fretted over possible replies for nearly an hour: “See you after you save the world” would have been tempting fate, while “I love you” would have been an unnecessary distraction, especially now, maybe always. (He’s often felt, over the past few months, as if those feelings were so close to the surface that they would pour out of him at the slightest nudge, whether Jon compelled him or not.)

Martin ended up writing back, _Look after each other,_ and _Try to get some sleep,_ before attempting to follow his own advice. Morning would almost certainly come whether or not he sat up and waited for it.

Now that it’s here, he tries not to think about whether the others are afraid of the fight ahead, or to imagine what their dreams might have been like, or to wonder whether either he or Jon would have slept more soundly if they’d been together. Martin’s job, right now, is to keep his head down and keep one more secret. He pulls on his clothes, laces up his shoes, and walks out into the summer sunshine, toward the Institute, to do what needs to be done.

-

Martin wakes up in a bed that’s more than large enough for two. “You’re still here,” he says, sitting up and rubbing sleep from his eyes. “I thought…”

“That I’d have abandoned you?” Peter Lukas finishes for him. “That wasn’t the purpose of this particular exercise. Unless you need a reminder?”

Martin sighs and recites, “You wanted me to know how physically close I can be to another person, while still feeling alone.”

“Full marks.” Peter takes his face in one strong, callused hand, and asks with a chuckle, “Did the lesson… sink in?”

Before he made this arrangement with his boss, his mentor, the only person who still regularly _speaks_ to him, Martin sat beside Jon’s comatose body for months, holding his hand, stroking his face and hair, trying unsuccessfully to convince himself that he wasn’t just touching a shell whose onetime occupant was somewhere else entirely, or nowhere at all. And even with Peter murmuring and growling in his ear, or with those gloriously rough hands lifting his legs to get a better angle inside him, Martin has found it all too easy to retreat from sensation, from emotion, from connection. “I think it did.”

“We might go another round later on, to see how much progress you’ve made,” Peter suggests. “If you think you can bear it.”

Martin can bear so much more than he thought he could, six months ago. He’s almost gotten used to the cold.

-

On their first night in the safe house, Martin isn’t sure whether Jon still needs to sleep. When he asks, Jon admits, “I feel better when I manage it. Only it’s… not particularly restful, usually.”

Martin asks if he can do anything to help, and that’s how they end up lying together in the bed, so that if Jon dreams of burrowing worms or grasping spiders, shifting walls or melting flesh or the suffocation of dirt, the rending of Peter’s body and mind or the knife edge of Elias’ smile... Martin is close enough to wrap him in a warm, secure embrace.

And when Martin falls back into sweet, cold oblivion as soon as he closes his eyes, so deeply that it’s still clinging to him when he opens them, Jon is close enough to _see_ it all.

He calls Martin’s name, touches his face and strokes his hair, but Martin hears and feels it all as if from a great distance, as he always does when the fog of the Lonely beckons him. If he surrenders to its hold, he won’t have to think about the horrors behind them, the dread that could be waiting just outside their door. He can just float away…

Then Jon touches their foreheads together and asks, “Martin, _where are you_?”

The question is threaded with compulsion; it gently seeks the truth within Martin and tugs it to the surface. The only thing outside their door is the quiet of the countryside, and if he’s not used to it yet, he thinks he could be, someday. The sheets are soft and the blankets are scratchy, the rusty bedsprings rasp whenever one of them moves, and Martin would know the body pressed against his even with his eyes closed. He’d recognize that voice from any distance, and hopes that they never have to be too far from each other again. “Home,” he whispers, burying his face in Jon’s shoulder. “I’m home.”


End file.
